Friday, March 7, 2008

Hillary Clinton, Monster... I'm with Samantha Power on this one...

Samantha Power earned a degree from Yale. Then, she snagged her J.D. from Harvard Law School. She spent several years as an "on the spot" journalist, reporting from some of the world's most dangerous places about issues relating to genocide, human rights and the conduct of foreign policy.

She wrote a book, A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide. It was good enough to put a Pulitzer Prize on her mantle. She recently finished another book, a biography of the late UN special envoy to Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello.

She's the Anna Lindh Professor of Practice of Global Leadership and Public Policy at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government and continues to write columns on areas of current interest in the realm of foreign affairs.

Samantha Power is the kind of person the rest of us should take seriously. We don't necessarily need to agree with every nuance of every position she takes on every single subject, but we should listen. She knows things. She takes the issues in her field very seriously. She researches them. She studies them. She is able to use the space for thinking afforded by ivory tower digs to create serious arguments about issues and places where she has personally spent time.

Samantha Power does like to talk. She gives the occasional commencement address. She shows up in panel discussions on genocide and human rights. She chats with Tavis Smiley. She does interviews with Charlie Rose. She occasionally shows up on Democracy Now. Overall, though, she's a lot less recognizable than you're average TV talking head and she seems to find a way to avoid the usual Fox/CNN/MSNBC circuit--probably because they aren't all that interested in serious discussion. Just a guess.

She also talks to Barack Obama. She's an adviser. Unpaid, but definitely part of the Obama camp. Samantha Power used to get phone calls from Wesley Clark when he was making his POTUS move, but she decided to join the Obama campaign. She liked his books. She liked his perspective on politics and foreign policy. She liked his pre-invasion stance on Iraq. She liked him.

Samantha Power is the kind of person Hillary Clinton's more gender-influenced supporters should absolutely love. Samantha Power plays in a traditional man's game--and wins. She's a former cross-country runner who can hold her own on a basketball court and who's also capable enough to have Harvard Professorship and a Pulitzer. She's articulate, successful and she even has good hair (at least Men's Vogue thinks so).

I doubt too many Clinton backers will be singing the praises of Ms. Power, though. You see, Samantha Power's intelligence and talkativity combined on the issue of Hillary Clinton to produce a very interesting statement. She may have thought she was off the record, but she wasn't. Thus, we now know that:

HILLARY CLINTON IS A MONSTER

That's what Samantha Power said. Remember, we're talking about a journalist who's seen unspeakable attrocities in Darfur. We're talking about a Harvard professor who wins Pulitzer prizes for her work on issues of genocide. And she's calling Hillary a monster.

According to the NY Daily News:

During an interview with The Scotsman, Samantha Power, one of Obama's unpaid advisers, said Clinton would stop at nothing in her zeal to seize the lead from Obama.

"She is a monster, too - that is off the record - she is stooping to anything," Power said, hastily trying to withdraw her remark.

In addition to calling Clinton a monster, Power made other unflattering comments about the former First Lady.

"Interestingly, the people in her innermost circle seem to not mind her; I think they really love her," she said.

Power said Clinton has looked desperate in her recent TV appearances.

"You just look at her and think: ergh. But if you are poor and she is telling you some story about how Obama is going to take your job away, maybe it will be more effective. The amount of deceit she has put forward is really unattractive," she said.

Of course, someone got her on the phone and she apologized for the step out of line. That's expected with the Obama campaign. As much as I sometimes wish Barack would be as mean and hateful as I am, he tends to hold himself and those around him to higher standards. In fact, Power assumes she'll get the boot from the campaign over her Monster remarks. It just cracks me up, though, that someone who really knows a sick fucking monster when she sees one would hang that tag on Hillary.

Samantha Power knows things. I'm going to trust her judgment on this one.

Hillary Clinton is a scummy politician who will stoop to anything in order to win an election. She is a one-dimensional freak who's only objective is hoarding power. Samantha got it right. She's a monster.

Who are you going to trust? The woman who hires Mark Penn, comes up with three new lies and seven new hypocrisies per day, schemes constantly and who eats positivity only to shit out fear-mongering and smarminess? How about the Harvard professor with the Yale degree, the Pulitzer, and a serious interest in solving some of the world's more pressing problems?

I know I'm supposed to be impressed with her pedigree...I mean Harvard! oh my...but all that fancy IV college didn't give her the discretion to NOT make these kind of comments which can be viewed in a negative way for Obama. The reason why Obama does not have the blue collar vote is because we can not empathize with him, and blogs like this make it more difficult. Our children go to community college. Our diet is simple. And you can bet we can not travel to Europe. But even this electrician knows that she shouldn't have made the comment in public.

Now, I'm going to give you some credit. This post, in isolation, isn't a particularly analytical indict of Ms. Clinton and her disgusting brand of malignant politics. This is just a brief look at who is calling her a monster (aside from yours truly) and why we might want to consider those observations.

Look around at some other posts if you're interested in some more specific indicts of Hillary, her diseased campaign strategies and her ugly perspective on governance and power.

1. It was just plain stupid. Even if she thought she was on the record, that kind of talk doesn't help Barry O.

2. It was at cross-purpose with the campaign's overriding theme of a better politics.

Even though she thought she was off the record, it was ill-advised. No doubt about it. You are right. Electricians tend to be smart people.

I don't understand how you could better empathize with Wellsley grad and former corporate attorney Hillary Clinton, who didn't have to work too many third shifts or even break a nail in her lifetime.

I know Obama has some Yalies and Harvardites (I just made the up out of laziness) on his team, but Hillary's staffing is just as bad and more ethically suspect.

At least Barry O. got some dirt under his nails on the streets of Chicago at one point. I think Hillary was having dinner with the Vice Premier of Wherethefuckisthatistan in preparation for C in C duties when he was doing that. She sure as hell wasn't eating a simple diet and wondering how to put Chelsea through school.

Oh, and yes, I am a mean bastard with respect to Clinton. I suppose that just makes BO a better guy than I am.

By the way, just in case you're wondering. I went to college, etc. I work for a living, though. I live in Kansas. I don't own my home. My wife is a schoolteacher. My mom is a nurse, my dad was a cowboy. Not every Obama backer is an elite snob.

Well you are being nasty and proving my original point of your simple minded comments. This is the first time I have posted to a blog and I must say I am not impressed with your lack of creative responses. You attack someone you hate with zest, but if someone comes at you - wow even most zest.. well have a good life over and out..

The distance between Hillary Clinton is a scheming bitch - which is undoubtedly true, even her supporters would have to acknowledge - and Hillary Clinton is a monster is not really that far a distance to cover.

And the fucked up part is that Samantha Power is clearly a more substantive policy player than Ms. Clinton. I hardly think that Jesse Helms is a terribly substantive policy player just because he was Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. I'm pretty sure that just about any Harvard Law Professor had more substance to offer to most foreign policy conversations. Same goes for Hillary Clinton, though with some obvious bumps to Ms. Clinton over Helms' credibility. But neither is likely to add to conversation what Ms. Powers is likely to. I've not read her work, so I don't know, for sure. But if I had to bet, I'd bet on Samantha.

In the meantime, if Hillary Clinton doesn't want to be called a monster, stop acting like a fuckin' monster, you power-hungry bitch.